


Hand in Glove

by duckgirlie



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckgirlie/pseuds/duckgirlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David doesn't think he's too modest. He's just looking for something very specific.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand in Glove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jehane18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane18/gifts).



David has never really touched another person.

Or rather, he's touched them, but only through clothes. His skin has never been in direct contact with another human being, except for his family.

Some people look at him a bit strangely when they find out, but it's not _that_ unusual, okay? David's parents might be a little stricter then other people's, but it's not like David wants to go around shaking bare hands with everyone he meets, okay? Sometimes he sees people holding hands in the street, and he tries hard not to be a judgemental person, but really? They can't wait 'til they get home for that kind of thing? They may as well be broadcasting to the world exactly what they _will_ be doing once they get alone together, and that's not really appropriate, is it?

And if sometimes, he dreams about lying next to someone on the grass, and tracing shapes with his fingertips along the inside of their arm then... it's just a dream.

 

*****

 

When he entered the cafe, Miley waved at him from her table at the back. He frowned.

“Where are your gloves?”

Miley rolled her eyes. “They're in my bag, _dad_.”

He frowned again. That wasn't what he'd meant. “I just didn't think you... I mean, aren't you afraid of Connecting with the wrong person?”

“The _whole point_ of Connecting is that it's not the wrong person.”

That's not strictly true, he thought, and she knew that as well as anyone. But he could also tell that she was talking bigger then she could back up, because when the waiter came to take their order, she kept her bare hands neatly folded in her lap, out of view.

He didn't prompt her to continue, and it didn't take long before she started talking again.

“There's this guy –”

David groaned. “ _Miley_.”

“– and he thinks girls who wear gloves are uptight, so...”

She trailed off, eyes on the table and her cheeks started to flush.

“What have you do –”

“Nothing!” she reassured him quickly. “And I'm not _stupid_ okay? I know he's propably not Mine or anything, but it might be fun. Don't you ever just get bored of waiting?”

“Not really.”

It's true. David isn't waiting, not really. He wants a Built Connection, not an Instant one, so it's different. He's not just going to walk around rubbing his skin off other people, waiting for one of them to catch. Even if they're not Yours, there's still something in the energy of skin-on-skin contact that affects you. He remembered a girl at school who used to say that she got dizzy if she didn't touch someone everyday, even if it was just a random person in the hallway.

She ended up getting married before she even finished her freshman year in college, to some guy six years older who lived three states away. He didn't want that to happen to Miley, and it probably wouldn't, but who could be sure? If she was just going to walk around with her hands and arms bare, just ready for someone to “accidentally” brush her arm to feel the energy. What if one of those people ended up being Hers? It didn't really bear thinking about.

Miley rolled her eyes again and affectionatly patted him on the wrist. “Don't worry. I'll put them back on before I take the bus home. None of the public-transport weirdos will get to me.”

They left the cafe and wandered down the street. It was late summer, so the sidewalks were bustling with people, and Miley didn't even raise an eyebrow as he subconciously lead her to the area of the park where the street musicians usually were. David walked through this park several times a week, and it was usually the same people playing with varying levels of skill, but sometimes someone new would show up.

David nearly missed him, because when they first arrived in the park he was just tuning up his guitar, but when he started playing, it was obvious that he was a new addition. David searched the small crowd of musicians until he found him, near the end. A little tall, a little scruffy, more then a little handsome.

Miley elbowed him in the ribs as they drifted over, and David blushed and hid his face in his jacket collar. As they got closer, he could see the man wasn't wearing gloves, but that wasn't _too_ weird if he was playing the guitar – David didn't wear them at the piano – and when he knelt down to fix something on his guitar case David could see the gloves roughly shoved into his back pocket.

Miley elbowed him again, and David was about to elbow her back when they were suddenly right in front of the guy, and he didn't want to be messing around like a kid.

They guy grinned at them both and strummed a random chord.

“Any requests?”

They both just shrugged and the guy grinned again and started playing something David's never heard before, but he liked.

When he was done, Miley clapped for a moment.

“Are you new in town?”

The guy was fiddling with his pegs again, but did't seem to mind her asking.

“Yeah, just a few weeks.”

“Welcome!”

Miley smiled brightly and held out her hand. She still hadn't put her gloves back on, and David nearly died of embarrassment. Because gosh, it was one thing to walk around with bare hands as if maybe your Connected wasn't with you, but it was _completely different_ to just offer your skin to someone you'd only just met. Miley looked completely inconcerned with what they might be thinking, but the guy raised an eyebrow slightly before digging around in his back pocket to pull his own gloves on.

After shaking Miley's hand, he held his out to David, and even though he knew it was impossible to feel very much at all through two layers of gloves, he thought the guy's hand was a little wam.

“I'm Dave.”

Miley laughed. “I'm Miley. And this is David! And I'm leaving.”

She was gone before David had a chance to object, leaving him and the guy – _Dave_ – alone.

Dave looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Your... sister? Seems... nice.”

“Oh my gosh, she's not my sister! She's just a friend.”

Dave laughed. “Okay, that makes more sense. I thought she was your girlfriend at first, but then...”

He wiggled his fingers to show his gloves, and David smiled slightly.

“Yeah, no. She's just my friend. I'm sorry about that, though. She can be a little... forward, sometimes.”

Dave laughed again, louder this time. “No problem. She's got nothing on some of the girls I know back home.”

“Still though, that was totally inappropriate of her, and if she made you uncomfortable, then –”

“Hey, it's cool.” Dave reached out to pat his elbow. “Whatever floats her boat, right? Gloves aren't for everybody, no judgement here.”

And then David felt bad, because Miley was his friend, and he'd known her for for years, and here he was, thinking badly of her for something small when this complete stranger didn't seem to mind at all. He ducked his head down to look at his feet.

“I should probably go.”

A look he couldn't quite decipher flashed across Dave's face, but it quickly became another smile. “Okay. Stop by again if you're back in the park, I'll try and be more in tune next time.”

Which, like, was ridiculous, because he sounded perfect already, but David didn't want to embarrass himself anymore then he already had, so he just nodded and ducked away into the crowd.

 

*****

 

Three days later, David was waiting for Miley in the cafe, and she was late. He was about to give up and head home when a shadow fell across his table.

He looked up. It was the guitarist from the park – Dave.

“Is this seat taken?”

“Um, no?”

Dave took a minute to sit down – he had to disentangle himself from his many bagstraps – but eventually set down his guitar, and his messenger bag, and a stack of printed photographs, and sat down.

“It's a nice morning.” David offered.

“Yeah.”

“I guess that makes it easier to play outside, if it's nice out.”

“Definitely. You don't want to be performing outside in the rain, it's just not a fun way to make any money.”

There was a silence for a moment, until the waiter brought over David's order, and knocked over the stack of photos as he set it down. David reached to stop the stack sliding off the end of the table, and turned a couple of them over as he re-stacked them on the table.

They were photos of Dave and a band onstage – grimy black and white photos that look like they were taken from the crowd or the side of the stage – and nobody in any of them is wearing gloves. Which, okay, isn't unusual for the band playing instruments, except that no one in the crowd is wearing them either. David's heard about that. He doesn't know if people are trying to connect with a passing rockstar, or just to grab an extra charge off the experience, but it's not that unusual – not that appropriate either, but then, nothing that happens at rock shows is exactly appropriate.

In some of the photos, Dave is reaching into the crowd, _grasping bare hands_ with members of the crowd. He doesn't even have gloves in his pocket, which means that he probably wasn't wearing them ever at the time, and hardly anyone ever puts gloves back on once they've stopped wearing them.

Unless they're in mourning.

Dave could see him looking at the photos, and smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Yeah. I guess I was maybe a little crazy back in the day.”

David didn't say anything, but Dave kept talking.

“I was in a band. Well, I'm still in the band, we're just taking a break right now. And when we used to play shows, nobody in the crowd would be wearing gloves – a lot of kids like your friend.”

And then David had to blush again, because he'd almost forgotten how ridiculous Miley had been.

“And that was just how it worked, there was a whole lot of energy – dizzyness, even – from the crowd, and I'd leave the stage with this incredible _high_.”

There was a pause for a moment, like Dave was waiting for David to say something.

“So like... you got addicted?”

Dave laughed again, and looked down at his own cup. “A little, I guess? I wish I could say that was enough to make me stop, but... It wasn't really hurting anyone, was it?”

 _Except yourself_ , David thought, but didn't say it.

“So what did happen?”

Dave pulled on of the pictures over and pointed at one of the other men on stage. “A friend of mine accidentally Connected with someone in the crowd. But everyone was so energised that night that he didn't realise at first that's what had happened, and by the time the show was over, and the crowd had been cleared out. She'd tried to find him afterwards, but no security guard is going to listen to a crying girl insisting that someone in the band is Hers, right? So it took him nearly three weeks to find her, and by the end, he could barely stand up by himself.”

David's heard about that as well. What can happen if the Connection isn't properly completed in enough time. That's another reason why his gloves are _always_ on.

“I mean, they Connected properly, and it's working now, but for a while it looked like the two of them were going to tear each other apart. And I just thought... Is that what I want? To end up randomly Connecting with someone I've never met? What happens if we hate each other for ages?”

David smiled a little. That was exactly what he'd been trying to explain to Miley when she couldn't understand why he wanted Built instead of Instant.

Dave smiled back, and finished his coffee. “I should probably get out there, before that asshole with the accordian steals my pitch.”

David still had half his hot chocolate left, but there's part of him that wanted to just down the whole thing even if it burned his tongue, and just follow Dave outside. He managed not to though, just looked up at Dave as he pulled all his bags back onto his shoulders.

Dave paused for a moment. “Would you maybe like to get coffee again sometime?”

There's something in David that just wanted to take his gloves off and press his fingers to the curve of Dave's jaw, just feel the pulse of his heartbeat through his skin. He doesn't though, thankfully, because that would spoil everything.

“I'd like that.”

“Great.”

Dave picked David's hand off the table and presses a tiny kiss to the back – and yeah, that's a _little_ forward, but they're both wearing gloves, so it's not so bad – before he smiled, and turned to leave the cafe.

Outside, he waved at David from across the road before heading into the park. David blushed again and looked down at his cup.

The back of his hand was still tingling.


End file.
